Then She Vanished

Forty-Three

When I picked her up the next morning, Tola looked as professional as I’d ever seen her, stepping from her tiled portico into the good June sun. Leaning on my truck I watched her walk toward me, her smile and sunglasses on, and a cinnamon-colored business suit that showed off her fair skin and red hair, which was up and held loosely in place by a faux ivory Nectar Barn cannabis-leaf barrette.

“Thanks for drumming up the media,” she said. “Hope they all show.”

“I still think that was a bad call.”

“You can’t use celebrity. I can.”

A beautiful and complex woman. I pictured her in the courtyard of the Hotel Casa Grande, pleading her case before taking her bloody, triple-barreled vengeance. I’d never forget what happened there. Did it lessen her? Clearly. But the part of me that was drawn to Tola argued that those men had it coming and, therefore, what she’d done was justice. Frontier style, appropriate to its time and place. So was I lessened, too? I was there. On her account. For now I was going to let my demons wrestle it out.

We came into San Diego on an inland route, sweeping through the edge of Balboa Park, under the Cabrillo Bridge, spilling into downtown on Eleventh Avenue, then Ash to Front to F to Union to the federal jail.

“Abel said this’ll take an hour or two and I’ll be on my way.”

“Nothing federal takes an hour or two.”

“Thanks, Daniel Downer,” said Tola.

“Call me when you’re ready and I’ll pick you up.”

“Sure you don’t want to stay?”

“I’ll stay until we hit the cameras,” I said. “Abel can take over from there. I’m kind of sick of me.”

“In the news, you mean?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“They say that Abel tries his cases in the media,” she said. “All that hair and bluster.”

“If you ever get to trial, it’s going to be a circus, Tola.”

“I love the circus. And I love you, Roland. Really a lot. I’m sorry I’m just a murderous lowlife, but I try to be a good person.”

“You acted according to your nature.”

A courtroom silence. She stared straight ahead. The bump of tires on the downtown streets.

“I’ll call you as soon as I get myself free,” she said.

I pulled into the parking structure, found a ten-minute space. Gave her a hand down.

In a big bright rectangle beyond the dark structure I could see the crowd of reporters and camera operators, all their mics and baffles, booms, lights, and logos. Some of the people I recognized. Along with Abel Cruzon, Mike Lark and two of Lark’s agents, and two uniformed marshals. And two hard-hatted, orange-vested workers puzzling over the concrete near the curb as pigeons bobbed around. All of this tableau in a panoramic sun-shot theater toward which I escorted Tola, her hand firm on my upper arm.

“I’ll take what I deserve,” she said. “What the law says I deserve. That’s okay. It’s my responsibility as a citizen.”

I had the thought that if Tola had been arrested for a premeditated triple murder in Buena Vista, Mexico, instead of attempted bribery of a federal officer in San Diego, she would quite possibly never see the outside of a prison again.

“You’ve got the best lawyer in the city,” I said. “You’ll surrender and post bail today, plea down later, and probably do a few months of federal time.”

“Attempted bribery of a federal agent can carry five years,” she said, squeezing my arm. “But I can run the Nectar Barns from the slammer. I could see you every other day. That’s the policy. I’ve looked into it. The rules say, when you come see me, we can shake hands, embrace lightly, and kiss briefly upon arrival and departure. Visitors’ behavior is considered to be the responsibility of the inmate. So if you go all mating dance on me, I’m the one they dock. You’ll need to show some self-control.”

We walked toward the knot of people gathered in the sunlight.

Then Tola stopped and turned to me. Her eyes searched my face and I felt the pain in them.

“I really don’t expect to see much of you in or out of prison, Roland. You’re better than me. But I’m harder. You can take the Straits out of East County… and we’ll be fine wherever we land. What’s left of the Straits, anyway.”

“You and Virgil will carry the flame,” I said.

“We absolutely will.”

Lark turned to us as Abel Cruzon raised a hand and started our way. Currents of movement through the reporters, the marshals hemming them in. The hard hats still looking down at their projects. Tola let go of my arm and the pigeons fluttered up as she walked into the sunlight.